This game really brought me back to the days in my old bedroom at home with my Commodore playing Arkanoid II (Revenge of Doh) for hours on end.
The kingdom of Gorudo is in trouble and it’s your job to sort it out! You play a wizard called Cyrus who uses his wand as the paddle in this Breakout remake, and Cyrus himself is the orb you are bouncing about the screen. Like Arkanoid, the blocks you break can contain power ups which you can use to blast away blocks or teleport Cyrus to a new location. You also collect coins which you need to donate to the villagers to help them rebuild their houses and shops.
There are 5 worlds and 12 levels per world. Each level features what you’d expect, a bunch of blocks, some harder to eliminate that other, some hidden behind unbreakable blocks, and we also get some wandering enemies. These enemies look like angry care-bears with pants. There are also boss encounters which helps make it more than just a block breaking game.
There are chests in some levels which may contain keys. There are also doors at the top of the screen and if you manage to open them they can greet you with a bonus level of power-ups and whatnot in bubbles, or you can find yourself in a shop where you purchase some useful goods.
You have to be wary of using all your abilities too quickly, you have a limited resource of magic to use although potions may fall from blocks or be purchased in the hidden shops.
The gameplay itself is what you would imagine, you keep breaking blocks / killing enemies, collecting coins and power-ups that fall, While keeping little Cyrus alive.
The controls are really straightforward, and the music is as retro as you would expect.
If you liked Breakout or Arkanoid then you will love this update on the formular. The graphics are suited to it’s style, so much so that I thought if they updated the graphics to current day specifications then it just wouldn’t fit. This is an arcade game so it should have an arcade look about it and I’m really glad they did.
Wizorb is nostalgic fun with some added direction. It’s nice to have bosses and enemies to defeat as well as the block breaking we’re all used to and its got none of your silly loading times you get with games these days. Cheap and cheerful!
8 Wizards getting orb-y out of 10